1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an audio device for playing back tracks recorded on a recordable medium such as a CD-R on which data is written in units of session, a method for managing the files of the tracks, and a method for playing back the tracks.
2. Description of the Related Art
By using a compression technique such as MPEG1 Audio Layer3 (MP3) or Advanced Audio Coding (AAC), a large number (one hundred or more) of tracks can be recorded on a compact disk-recordable (CD-R). Also, an audio device (hereinafter referred to also as a CD-R playback device) for playing back tracks recorded on a CD-R with the above-mentioned compression techniques is being developed.
Generally, in this type of CD-R playback device, tracks are played back in order from the track recorded first. That is, each of the tracks is managed on the basis of the file name and the timestamp (date of recording) recorded in a lead-in area of the CD-R. The CD-R playback device examines the timestamp of each of the tracks to allocate a number (hereinafter referred to as a track number) for them in order from the track having the oldest timestamp and plays back them from the first track. An operation panel of the CD-R playback device is provided with an up/down key, and by operating the up/down key, the user can start to play back the tracks from a desired track.
As described above, the known CD-R playback device plays back tracks in order from the track having the oldest timestamp. Therefore, the user is required to press the up/down key many times when he/she wants to listen to the latest track. Although the user can directly input a track number by using a ten-key keypad, it is difficult for the user to remember the track number of all of the recorded tracks because the CD-R contains 100 or more tracks.